Best AIDS Drugs Still Unavailable to Global Poor

Even though Indian and Brazilian generic drugs for HIV/AIDS are finally flooding the developing the world (there's now more than a million people receiving treatments), Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontieres) today launched a broadside against several drugmakers who have failed to make the latest and best versions of these crucial drugs available to poor people around the world.

Earlier this year, the World Health Organization endorsed a new heat-stable regimen for AIDS, which would be ideal for Third World countries. It's made by Abbott Laboratories. However, the company has not registered its product with a single less developed country and its list price in "second-tier" markets like Thailand is $2,200 a year. Despite protests from groups like MSF, a Washington meeting this week that brought together donor organizations like WHO, UNAIDS, and the World Bank did not take up the pricing issue.

"Donor money should not be squandered to pay for overpriced drugs. The priority is to make drug prices come down as much as possible,” said one MSF official. “International organizations, donors, and industry must overhaul their strategies to ensure that universal access to AIDS treatment for life becomes a reality – this means confronting companies and their patents.”

World Aids day is December 1.